ADDRESS 



DELIVERKI) AT THE 



IDifflR-ffflTiNliL (llLEBRATIi 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS AS A STATE, 



GOY. JOHN A. MARTIN. 



Topeka, Kansas, January 29tli, 1886. 



TOPEKA : 

KANSAS PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

1886. 



G § C- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF -KANSAS: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE iJUARTER-CENTENNIAl. CELEBRATION OF THE 

ADMISSION OF KANSAS, TOPEKA, JANUARY 29, 1886, 

BY (lOVERNOR JOHN A. MARTIN. 



Mr. Chah-man, and Ladies and Gentlemen: 

In Grecian mythology it is related that Zeus, warned by an oracle that 
the son of his spouse, Metis, would snatch supremacy from him, swallowed 
both Metis and her unborn child. When the time of birth arrived, Zeus 
felt a violent pain in his head, and in his agony requested Hephaestus to 
cleave the head open with an ax. His request was complied with, and 
from the brain of the great god sprang Athena, full-armed, and with a 
mighty war-shout. She at once assumed a high place among the divini- 
ties of Olympus. She first took part in the discussions of the gods as 
an opponent of the savage Ares. She gave counsel to her father against 
the giants; and she slew Enceladus, the most powerful of those who con- 
spired against Zeus, and buried him under Mt. ^tna. She became the 
patron of heroism among men, and her active and original genius inspired 
their employment. The agriculturist and the mechanic were under her 
special protection, and the philosopher, the poet and the orator delighted 
in her favor. The aegis was in her helmet, and she represented the 
ether — pure air. She was worshipped at Athens because she caused the 
olive to grow on the bare rock of the Acropolis. She was also the pro- 
tectress of the arts of peace among women. She bore in her hand the 
spool, the spindle, and the needle, and she invented and excelled in all 
the work of women. She was the goddess of wisdom and the symbol of 
thought; she represented military skill and civic prudence. In war she 
was heroic and invincible; in peace she was wise, strong, inventive, and 
industrious. 

THE ATHENA OF AMERICAN STATES. 

Kansas is the Athena of American States. Thirty-six years ago the 
Slave Oligarchy ruled this country. Fearing that the birth of new States 
in the West would rob it of supremacy, the Slave Power swallowed the 
Missouri Compromise, which had dedicated the Northwest to Freedom. 



The industrious North, aroused aud indignant, struck quick and Imrd, 
and Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war-cry of Liberty, and nerved 
with invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed a 
high place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of Slavery ; she 
o-ave voice and potency to the demand for its abolition ; and she aided in 
burving Secession in its unhonored grave, The war over, she became the 
patron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism, 
and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within the 
shelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist aud the mechauic were 
charmed by her ample resources and inspired by her eager enterprise. 
Education found in her a generous patron, and to literature, art and 
science she has been a steadfast friend. Her pure atmosphere invigorated 
all. A desert disfigured the map of the Continent, and she (-overed it 
with fields of golden wheat aud tasseling corn. She has extended to 
women the protection of generous laws and of enlarged opportunities for 
usefulness. In war she was valiant and indomitable, and in peace she 
has been intelligent, energetic, progressive and enterprising. The modern 
Athena, type of the great Greek goddess, is our Kansas. 

THE CHILD OF A GREAT ERA. 

It is not a long lapse of time since the 29th of January, 1861. A boy 
born during that eventful year cast his first Presidential vote at the last 
election. But no other period of the world's history has been so fertile in 
invention, so potential in thought, so restless aud aggressive in energy, or 
so crowded with sublime achievements, as the quarter-century succeeding 
the admission of Kansas as a State. During that period occurred the 
greatest war the world has ever known. An industrious, self-governed, 
peace-loving people, transfigured by the inspiration of patriotism and 
freedom, became, within a twelve-month, a Nation of trained and dis- 
ciplined warriors. Human slavery, entrenched for centuries in law, 
tradition, wealth, and the pride of race, was annihilated, and five million 
slaves were clothed with the powers and responsibilities of citizen- 
ship. The continent was girdled with railroad and telegraph lines. In 
1860 there were only 31,186 miles of railway in the United States; there 
are now fully 130,000 miles. Less than 50,000 miles of telegraph wires 
were stretched at the date of the admission of Kansas ; there are now 
nearly 300,000 miles. The telephone aud the electric light are. fruits of 
this period, and the improvements aud inventions in fiirni implements, in 
books and newspapers, in all the appliances of mechanical industry, and 
in the arts and sciences, have revolutionized nearly every department of 
human activity. 

When this marvelous era dawned upon the world, Kansas was a fie- 



3 

tiou of the sjeographers. On the map oi' our country it was marked as 
a desert, and the few explorers who had penetrated its vast solitudes 
described it as an arid and sandy waste, tit only for the wild bison or the 
wilder Indian. There it had lain for centuries, voiceless and changeless, 
waiting for the miracle of civilization to touch and transform it. 

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill made Kansas the central fig- 
ure in a tremendous conflict. It became not only the child of a marvel- 
ous epoch, and heir to all the progress, the achievements and the glory 
of that epoch, but it stood for an idea; it represented a principle; and 
that idea and principle thrilled the heart and awakened the conscience of 
the Nation. That a State cradled amid such events, schooled during such 
a period, and inspired by such sentiments, should, in its growth and de- 
velopment, illustrate these mighty energies and impulses, was inevitable. 
The Kansas of to-day is only the logical sequence of the influences and 
agencies that have surrounded, shaped and directed every step and stage 
of the State's material and administrative progress. 

NOT THE HISTORIAN. 

I am not, however, the historian of this occasion. Very properly the 
committee assigned to my honored predecessor, the first Governor of the 
State — who has been with and of it during all the lights and shadows 
of thirty-one revolving years — the duty of presenting an historical sketch 
of the difficulties and dangers through which Kansas was "added to the 
stars," and became one of the brightest in the constellation of the Union. 
To me was allotted another task — that of presenting, as briefly and as 
clearly as I am able, the material development of Kansas, and her pres- 
ent condition and position. It is at once a delightful and a difficult task. 
The growth of Kansas is a theme which has always enlisted my interest 
and excited my pride. But I cannot hope to present any adequate picture 
of the Kansas you know so well — the Kansas of your love and of your 
faith ; the imperial young State, at once the enigma and the wonder of 
American commonwealths. 

THREE PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT. 

The development of Kansas, it seems to me, has had three periods,, 
which may properly be called the decades of War, of Uncertainty, and 
of Triumph. From 1855 to 1865, Kansas was an armed camp. The 
border troubles, outbreaking late in 1854, continued until the rebellion 
was inaugurated. Kansas, in fact, began the war six years before the 
Nation had fired a shot, and the call to arms in 1861 found here a sin- 
gularly martial people, who responded with unparalleled enthusiasm to the 
President's demands for men. In less than a year ten full regiments were 



organized, and before the close of the war Kansas liad sent over twenty 
thousand soldiers to the field, out of a population of but little more than a 
hundred thousand. Fields, worksho})s, offices and schools were deserted, 
and the patient and heroic women who had kept wcarv vigils during all 
the dark and desolate days of the border troubles, now waited in their 
lonely home for tidings from the larger field of the civil war. 

It is doubtful whether Kansas increased, either in population or wealth, 
from 1861 to 1864. But the young State grew in public interest and 
reputation, and when the heroic men, whose valor and patriotism had 
saved the Republic, began to be mustered out, Kansas offered an inviting 
field for their energy, and they came hither in great numbers. The pop- 
ulation of the State, which was 107,206 in 1860, had increased to 140,179 
in 1865. The assessed value of its property increased from $22,518,232 
to $36,110,000 during the same period, and the land in farms from 
1,778,400 to 3,500,000 acres. It was not a ''boom," nor was it stagna- 
tion and decay. Yet it is probable that nearly the whole of the growth 
shown by these figures dates from the Spring of 1864. 

The real development of Kansas began in 1865, and it has known few 
interruptions since. The census of 1870 showed a population of 364,399 
— an increase of 124,220 in five years, or nearly double the population 
of 1865. Railroad building also began in 1865, and 1,283 miles were 
completed by 1870. The home-returning soldiers and the railroads came 
together. Immigrants to other States came in slow-moving canal boats 
or canvas-covered wagons, but they came to Kansas in the lightning 
express, and most of them went to their claims in comfortable cars drawn 
by that marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Our State has 
never had a "coon-skin cap" population. It is the child of the prairies, 
not of the forest. It has always attracted men of intelligence, who knew 
a good thing when they saw it. They brought with them the school, 
the church and the printing press ; they planted an orchard and a grove 
as soon as they had harvested their first crop ; and if they were compelled 
to live in a dug-out the first year or two, they were reasonably certain to 
own a comfortable house the third. 

THE PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY. 

The period from 1865 to 1875 was, however, a period of uncertainty. 
Kansas remained an experiment. The drouth and grasshopper invasion 
of 1860, a menacing memory for many years, had just begun to grow 
dim when the drouth of 1873 and the still more disastrous drouth and 
locust invasion of 1874 revived its recollection, and intensified the uncer- 
tainty it had inspired. The intervening years were not, it is true, with- 
out their exaltation and triumphs. Luxuriant harvests followed the dis- 



5 

aster of 18(>0, year attiT year in unbroken snccession, until 1<S7.">, and 
we indulged in niueli juhilaut boastino; and self-gratutation over our 
fruitful soil, our benign climate, and our gracious seasons. But over and 
through it all brooded and ran a feeling of question or uncertainty, 
which manifested itself in many ways. The newspapers, while affecting 
to sneer at those who did not believe Kansas to be a country where rains 
always came Just when they were wanted, nevertheless recorded every 
rain with suspicious prominence. Even the corner-lot speculator watched 
the clouds while he was denouncing the slanderers who asserted that 
Kansas was "a dry country." "Methinks the lady doth protest too 
much," might have been said of the Kansans who, from 1865 to 187r>, 
vehemently maintained that the normal condition (tf Kansas was that of 
a quagmire. 

And in the midst of it all came 1873 and 1874, with their twin devas- 
tations and calamities. A fierce sun rose and set for months in a cloud- 
less sky; the parched earth shrank and cracked; and the crops withered 
and shriveled in winds as hot as the breath of a furnace. But as if the 
destruction thus wrought was not enough, out from the northwest came 
clouds of insects, darkening the sun in their baleful flight, and leaving 
the very abomination of desolation wherever they alighted. It was then 
that the bravest quailed, and our sturdiest farmers abandoned all hope. 
Thousands of people, now among our most prosperous citizens, would 
have sold everything they possessed for one-sixth of its value, during the 
year 1874, and abandoned the State forever. But they could find no pur- 
chasers, even at such a price. 

Somehow — and I mention the fact to their everlasting credit — many 
of the newspapers of Kansas never lost heart or hope during that dis- 
tressful season. Tiiey lauded the State more earnestly, if possible, than 
ever before. They asserted, with vehement iteration, that the season was 
exceptional and phenomenal. They exhorted the people to keep up 
courage, and confidently predicted abundant harvests next year. And to 
their influence more than any other, is due the fact that Kansas survived 
the drouth and grasshopper invasion of 1 874 with s(» little loss of pop- 
ulation. 

THE PERIOD OF TRIUMPH. 

The period of triumph began in 1875. While the world was still 
talking of our State as a drouth-powdered and insect-eaten country, Kan- 
sas was preparing for the Centennial, and getting ready for a great fu- 
ture. And in 1876, she sprang into the arena of Nations with a display 
of her products and resources which eclipsed them all, and excited the 
wonder and admiration of the whole civilized earth. 

From that time to this the development of Kansas has never known 



6 

a halt, uor have the hopes of our citizens ever beeu troubled by a doubt. 
More permanent and costly homes have been builded, more stately public 
edifices have been reared, more substantial improvements have been made 
on farms and in towns, more wealth has been accumulated, during the 
decade beginuinji; in 1875, than during the two previous decades. No 
citizen of Kansas, from that day to this, has ever written a letter, made 
a speech, or talked at home or abroad, with his fellow-citizens or with 
strangers, without exalting the resources and glorifying the greatness of 
the State. No Legislature, since that time, has ever doubted the ability 
of the State to do anything it pleased to do. 

A new Kansas has been developed during that period. The youth of 
1875 has grown to the full stature and strength of confident and intelli- 
gent manhood. The people have forgotten to talk of drouths, which are 
no more incident to Kansas than to Ohio or Illinois. They no longer 
watch the clouds when rain has not fallen for two weeks. The newspa- 
pers no longer chronicle rains as if they were uncommon visitations. A 
great many things, besides the saloons, have gone, and gone to stay. The 
bone-hunter and the buffalo-hnnter of the plains, the Indian and his 
reservations, the jayhawker and the Wild Bills, the Texas steer and the 
cowboy, the buffalo grass and the dug-outs, the loneliness and immensity 
of the unpeopled prairies, the infinite stretching of the plains, unbroken 
by tree or shrub, by fence or house — all these have vanished, or are 
rapidly vanishing. In their stead has come, and come to stay, an aggress- 
ive, energetic, cultured, sober, kuv-res[)ecting civilization. Labor-saving 
machines sweep majestically through fields of golden wheat or sprouting 
corn; blooded stock lazily feed in meadows of blue-stem, timothy, or 
clover ; comfortable houses dot every hill-top and valley ; forests, orchards 
and hedge-rows diversify the loveliness of the landscape; and where iso- 
lation and wilduess brooded, the majestic lyric of prosperous industry is 
echoing over eighty-one thousand square miles of the loveliest and most 
fertile country that the sun, in his daily journey, lights and warms. The 
voiceless Sphynx of thirty years ago has become the whispering-gallery 
of the continent. The oppressed Territory of 1855, the beggared State 
of 1874, has become a Prince, ruling the markets of the world with opu- 
lent harvests. 

THE FACTS OF THE CENSFS. 

I am not, in thus exalting the growth and prosperity of Kansas, s|)eak- 
ing recklessly, as I shall show by statistics compiled from the census and 
agricultural reports of the United States and our own State. Figures are 
always dry, I know. But when they tell the pleasant story of the marcli 
of civilization into and over a new land, surely they cannot fail to interest 



men and women who liuve themselves marched with this conquering array 
of in(histry and peace. 

THE GROWTH OF KANSAS WITHOUT PARALLEL. 

The growth of Kansas has had no parallel. The great States of New 
York and Pennsylvania were nearly a hnndred and fifty years in attaining 
a population Kansas has reached in thirty years. Kentucky was eighty 
years, Tennessee seventy-five, .Vlabaina ninety, Ohio forty-five, and Massa- 
chusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, and North and South Carolina each over a 
hundred years, in reaching the present population of Kansas. Even the 
marvelous growth of the great States of the West has been surpassed by 
that of Kansas. Illinois was organized as a Territory in 1810, and thirty 
years later had only 691,392 inhabitants, or not much more than one-half 
the present population of this State. Indiana was organized in 1800, and 
sixty years later had a population of only 1 ,350,428. Iowa was organized 
as a Territory in 1838, and had, at that date, a population of nearly 40,000. 
In 1870 it had only 1 ,1 94,020 inhabitants. Missouri wasorganized in 1 812, 
with a jiopulation of over 40,000, and fifty years later had only 1,182,012. 
Michigan and Wisconsin, after fifty years of growth, did not have as many 
people as Kansas has to-day ; and Texas, admitted into the Union in 1845, 
with a population of 150,000, had, thirty-five years later, only 815,579 
inhabitants. 

In 1861 Kansas ranked in population as the thirty-third State of the 
Union; in 1870 it was the twenty-ninth; in 1880 the twentieth; and it 
is now the fifteenth. During the past quarter of a century Kansas has 
outstripped Oregon, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Arkansas, Vermont, 
New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, Mississippi, 
California, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, and New 
Jersey — all States before the 29th of January, 1861. Of the Northern 
States only eight. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Mas- 
.sachusetts, Michigan, and Iowa, and of the Southern States only six, Geor- 
gia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas, now outrank 
Kansas in population. At the close of tlie present decade Kansas will, 
I am confident, rank as the eleventh State of tlie American Union, and 
will round out the Nineteenth Century as the sixth or seventh. 

In the following table the population of Kansas, as shown by the first 
census of the Territory, taken in Jamiary, 1855, and the official enumera- 
tions made every five years thereafter, is shown. The figures also exhibit 
the proportion of white and colored, and of native and 'foreign-born in- 
habitants ; the increase of population every five years, and the density of 
population |>er square mile of territory at the close of each period. The 



State census taken in 1865, however, did not show the proportion of na- 
tive and foreign-born citizens : 



Year 



Total 
population. 



Increase. 



1855 1 8,601 

1860 1 107,206 

1865 , 140,179 

1870 , 364,399 

1875 528,349 

1880 996,096 

1885* ' 1,268,562 

I 

* Census of March, 1885. 



98,605 
32,973 
224,220 
163,950 
467,747 
272,466 



DeiLsity of 
population. 



1.3 
1.6 

4.4 
6.5 
12.2 
15.4 



White 
population. 



Colored. 



106,390 
127,270 
346,377 
493,005 
9.52,105 
1,220,355 



816 
12,909 
18,022 
35,344 
43,941 
48,207 



Native 
population. 



94,512 



316,007 

464,682 

886,010 

1,135,887 



Foreign- 
born. 



12,694 



48,392 
63,667 
110,086 
132,675 



TOWNS AND CITIES. 



In 1860 there were only ten towns and cities in Kcin.sa.s having a pop- 
ulation in excess of 500 each; only three having over 1,000 each; and 
only one having over 5,000 inhabitants. In 1880, ninety-nine towns 
each had a population in excess of 500 ; fifty-five towns and cities had 
each over 1,000 inhabitants; six had each over 5,000; and three had 
over 15,000 each. In 1885, each of one hundred and fifty-four towns had 
over 500 population ; ninety-one towns and cities had each over 1 ,000 ; 
twelve had each over 5,000; six had each over 10,000; four had each 
over 15,000; and two had each more than 20,000. 

ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE POPULATION. 

The origin and character of the population in Kansas is, in this con- 
nection, worthy of special note. Every State in the Union and every 
Territory except Alaska, contributed to the population of this State. The 
United States census of 1880 shows that 283,066 persons born in Kansas 
were then living in the State. The singular fact that native-born Kan- 
sans were then living in every State and Territory, is shown by the same 
authority. Illinois contributed 106,992 to our population ; Ohio, 93,396 ; 
Indiana, 77,096; Missouri, 60,228 ; Pennsylvania, 59,236 ; Iowa, 55,972; 
New York, 43,779; and Kentucky, 32,979. Three other States, Ten- 
nessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, each contributed over 15,000; and all 
othere less than that number. 

The .same authority shows that the so-called "exodus" from the South 
has been greatly exaggerated, Louisiana and Mississippi furnishing only 
4,067 of our colored population, while nearly 19,000 came from the three 
States of Kentucky, Missouri, and Teunes.see. 

The colored people constitute, at the present time, less than four per 
cent, of our total population, and the inhabitants of foreign birth a little 
more than ten per cent, of the total. 



THE MATKUIAL RESOURCES OF KANSAS. 

The growth of our State in population has not, however, equalled the 
development of its material resources. The United States census of 1880 
shows that while Kansas, at that date, ranked as the twentieth State in 
population, it was the eighth State in the number and value of its live 
stock, the seventeenth in farm products, the fourteenth in value of farm 
products per capita, the twentieth in wealth, the thirteenth in education, 
the seventeenth in the amount of its indebtedness, State and municipal, 
and the twenty-fourth in manufactures. Only one State, Nebraska, 
shows a smaller proportion of persons unable to read and write. And 
in twenty-eight of the forty-seven States and Territories, taxation, per 
capita, was greater than it is in Kansas. 

In 1880 Kansas was the sixth corn-producing State of the Union. 
Only Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio then produced larger 
crops of this cereal. But the corn product of Kansas, that year, was 
only 101,421,718 bushels, while for the year 1885 it was 194,130,814 
bushels, or nearly double the crop of 1880. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS. 

In the following table the aggregate of the corn, wheat, oats, potato, 
and hay products of Kansas, for the years 1860 and 1865, and for each 
year thereafter, is given. The figures, prior to 1875, are compiled from 
the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture; those fol- 
lowing, from the reports of the secretary of our own State Board of 
Agriculture : 



Year. 



1860. 
1865. 
1866. 
1867. 
1868. 
1869. 
1870. 
1871. 
1872. 
1873. 
1874. 
1875. 
1876. 
1877., 
1878. 
1879. 
1880. 
1881., 
1882., 
1883., 
1884., 
1885., 



Corn, 
bushels. 



,150 
,729 
527 
159 
487 
685 
025 
f)!)3 
667 
683 
i;99 
798 
308 
497 
323 
704 
421 
760 
005 
084 
870 
130 



,727 
,236 
,358 
,000 
000 
000 
525 
000 
451 
843 
078 
769 
176 
831 
971 
927 
718 
542 
722 
526 
686 
814 



Wheat, 
bushels. 



194,173 

191,519 

260,465 

1,250,000 

1,537,000 

2,343,000 

2,391,197 

2,694,000 

3,062,941 

5,994,044 

9,881,383 

13,209,403 

14,620,225 

14,316,705 

32,315,358 

20,550,936 

25,279,884 

20,479,679 

35,734,846 

30,024,936 

48,050,431 

10,859,401 



Oals, 
bushels. 



Potatoes, 
busMs. 



155 

200 

236 

247 

1,500 

4,097 

4,056 

6,084 

9,360 

7,847 

9,794 

12,386 

12,768 

17,411 

13,326 

11,483 

9,900 

21,946 

30,987 

20,087 

30,148, 



,325 I 

,290 : 

,000 I 

,000 ' 

,000 i 
,000 

,925 I 

,000 I 

,000 I 
,000 
,000 
,051 

,216 I 

,488 I 

,473 I 

,637 I 
,796 



284 
864 
294 
060 



296,325 
276,720 
243,000 
314,000 
850,000 
1,500,000 
2,342,988 
3,452,000 
3,797,000 
3,000,000 
1,116,000 
4,668,939 
5,611,895 
3,320,507 
4,525,419 
3,521,526 
5,310,423 
2,055,202 
5,081,865 
6,812,420 
7,861.404 
7,398.465 



ffay, 
tons. 



56,232 

118,348 

123,082 

162,000 

118.000 

250,000 

490,289 

687,000 

728,000 

977,000 

530,000 

1,156,412 

809,149 

1,228,020 

1,507,988 

1,551,321 

1,5:«,221 

2,122,263 

2,293,186 

6,002,041 

7,105,132 

7,685,340 



In presenting these figures it is worthy of note that while, as already 
stated, the U. S. census reports for 1880 show that Kansas ranked as the 



10 



twentieth State iu population and the sixth in its corn product, it was also 
the eleventh wheat-producing State of the Union, the eleventh in its oats 
product, sixteenth in barley, tenth in rye, eighth in hay, and seventeenth 
in potatoes. Thus the rank of Kansas, iu agricultural products, was far 
ahead of her rank in population. 

THE AEEA OF KANSAS. 
The total area of Kansas is 52,288,000 acres. In 1865 only 243,712 
acres of this vast territory were under cultivation; in 1870 the area ag- 
gregated 1,360,000 acres; iu 1875, 4,749,900 acres; in 1880,8,868,884 
acres; and in 1885, 14,252,815 acres. In the following table I have 
compiled figures showing the area under cultivation, and the value of the 
crops produced in Kansas each year, from 1865 to 1885, inclusive: 



Year. 


Acres in 
crops. 


Value of 
crops. 


Year. 


Acres in 
crops. 


Value of 
crops. 


1865 


243 712 


«5 S47 STR 


1876 


5,035,697 
5,595,304 
6,538,727 
7,769,926 
8,868,884 
9,802,719 
11,043,379 
11,364,040 


$45,581,926 
45,597,051 
49,914,434 
60,129,780 


1866 


273 903 "fi' 093 '849 ' 


1877 


1867 


397,622 
562,120 
855,801 


8,129,590 
10,467,163 
15.807.550 


1878 


1868 


1879 


1869 


1880 


63,111,634 


1870 


1,360,000 i 18,870,260 
1,322,734 17.335.120 


1881 


91 910 439 


1871 


1882 


108 177 520 


1872 


1,735,595 
2,530,769 
3,179,616 
4,749,900 


15,498,770 
28,311,200 
30,842,630 
43,970,494 


1883 


106 707 529 


1873 


1884 


13,011,333 1 104,297,010 
14,252,815 92 392 818 


1874 


1885 


1875 













VALUE OF FARM CROPS. 
The value of the farm crops of Kansas, for the five years ending with 
1870, aggregated $59,298,414; for the next succeeding five years their 
value was $135,958,214; for the next five years, $264,334,824; and for 
the five years ending with 1885 the farm crops of Kansas aggregated in 
value $503,485,316. Thus during the past twenty years the farmers of 
Kansas have produced crops whose aggregate value reached the enormous 
sum of $963,076,768. 

FARMS AND FARM PRODUCTS. 
The increase in the value of farms, of farm implements, and of farm 
products, (including farm crops, products of live stock, and market gar- 
den, apiarian and horticultural products,) is shown in the following table. 
It will be seen that these values have generally doubled every five years : 



Year. 


Value of farms. 


Value of farm 
implements. 


Value of 

farm 
products. 


1860 


$12,258,239 
24,796,535 
90,327,040 
123,852,466 
235,178,936 
408,073,454 


8727,694 
1,200,720 
4,053,312 
7,935,645 
15,652,848 
9,604,117 


$4,878,350 
10,653,235 
07 630 651 


1865 


1870 


1875 


43'970'414 


1880 


84*521 '486 


1885 


143,577,018 





11 



The value of the farm products of Kansas, from 1876 to 188U, inclu- 
sive, aggregated $356,557,802, while their value from 1881 to 1885, in- 
clusive, aggregated the enormous sum of .$738,676,912. 

TAXABLE ACRES. 

The steady development of the State is further illustrated by the figures 
showing the increase of taxable acres. In 1860 only 1,778,400 acres were 
subject to taxation ; in 1865 this area had been enlarged to 3,500,000 
acres; in 1870 to 8,480,839 acres; in 1875 to 17,672,187 acres; in 1880 
to 22,386,435 acres; and in 1885 to 27,710,981 acres. 

LIVE STOCK. 

In the number and value of its live stock, Kansas ranked, in 1880, as 
the eighth State of the Union. In 1860 the live stock of Kan.sas aggre- 
gated in value only a little over three million dollars; in 1865 it aggre- 
gated over seven millions; in 1870, over twenty-three millions; in 1875, 
nearly twenty-nine millions; in 1880, over sixty-one millions; and in 
1885, nearly one hundred and eighteen million dollars. The following 
table gives the number of horses, mules, cows, cattle, sheep, and swine, 
and their aggregate value, for the years 1861 and 1865, and every year 
thereafter to and including 1885 : 



Year. 


Horses. 


Mules. 


Cows. 
28,550 


Caille. 


Sheep. 


Swine. 
138,224 


Value of 
live stock. 


1861 


20,344 


1,496 


74,905 


17,569 


J3, 332, 450 


1865 


32,469 


2,490 


71,996 


130,307 


82,662 


95,429 


7,324,659 


1866 


38,968 


2,863 


82,075 


139,428 


108,287 


127,875 


9,127,306 


1867 


39,968 


2,936 


85,120 


140,560 


106,287 


132,7,50 


10,081,590 


1868 


42,859 


2,405 


89,461 


146,399 


101,789 


140,662 


9,962,311 


1869 


50,573 


2,597 


109,142 


165,430 


107,896 


137,848 


12,902,830 


1870 


117,786 


11,786 


123,440 


250,. 527 


109,088 


206,587 


23,173,185 


1871 


156,000 


14,900 


162,000 


3-^5,000 


115,000 


304,800 


31,823,484 


1872 


180,900 


16,300 


191,100 


397,400 


116,100 


381,000 


28,488,704 


1873 


198,900 


17,400 


214,000 


457,000 


123,000 


457,200 


30,013,898 


1874 


220,700 


19,100 


231,000 


.507,200 


141,000 


484,600 


.Jl, 163, 058 


1875 


207,376 


24,964 


225,028 


478,295 


10i;,224 


292,6.58 


28,610,257 


1876 


214,811 


26,421 


227,274 


473,350 


143,0(>2 


330,355 


32,489,293 


1877 


241,208 


32,628 


261,642 


519,346 


2U5,770 


704,862 


33,015,647 


1878 


274,450 


40,564 


286,241 


586,002 


243,760 


1,195,044 


36, 9 13,, 534 


1879 


324,766 


.51,981 


322,020 


654,443 


311,862 


1,264,494 


54,775,497 


1880 


.367,. 589 


58,303 


.366,640 


748,672 


426,492 


1,281,630 


61,563,9,56 


1881 


383,805 


58,780 


406,706 


839,751 


806,323 


1,173,199 


69,814,340 


1882 


398,678 


56,654 


4.33,381 


971,116 


978,077 


1,228,683 


83,869,199 


1883 


423,426 


59,262 


471,548 


1,133,154 


1,154,196 


1,393,968 


104,539,888 


1884 


461,136 


64,889 


530,904 


1,328,021 


1,206,297 


1,953,144 


115,645,050 


1885 


513, .507 


75,165 


575,887 


1,397,131 


875,193 


2,461,520 


117,881,699 



THE WEALTH OF AN AGRICULTURAL STATE. 

Kansas is an agricultural State. It has no gold or silver, no iron, and 
just coal enough to furnish fuel. It is the farmers' and stockmen's State. 
Its development simply shows what good old Mother Earth, when in her 
happiest vein, can do. "Agriculture," says Colton, " is the most certain 
source of strength, wealth, and independence ; commerce, in all emergen- 



12 

cies, look^: to agriculture both for defense and for supply." The growth 
and prosperity of Kansas afford a striking illustration of what intelligent 
farmers, with a productive soil aud a genial climate for their workshop, 
can accomplish — what wealth they can create, what enterprise they can 
stimulate. 

It is difficult, however, to comprehend what the figures I have given, 
showing the amounts and values of Kansas products, really represent. 
When we read that Kansas produced, last year, 194,130,000 bushels of 
corn, the nine figures set down do not convey any adequate idea of the 
hulk and weight of this crop. But when it is stated that the corn crop 
of Kansas for 1885 would fill 485,000 freight cars, and load a train 
2,847 miles long — reaching from Ogdeu, Utah, to Boston — we begin to 
comprehend what the figures stand for. 

The wheat crop of the State, last year, was called a failure. It was, 
for Kansas. Aud yet it would fill 31,939 grain cars, and load a train 
189 miles in length. The oats crop of the State, for the same year, 
would fill 44,335 cars, and load a train 260 miles long; while the hay 
crop would load 768,534 cars, making a train 4,510 miles long. 

These four crops of Kansas, for 1885, would fill 1,329,808 grain cars, 
aud load a traiu 7,804 miles in length. In other words, the corn, wheat, 
oats, and hay produced in Kansas last year would load a traiu reaching 
from Boston to San Francisco by the Union Pacific route, and back again 
from San Francisco to Boston by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe route. 

COMPARATIVE VALUES. 

In speaking of the value of the farm crops and farm products of Kan- 
sas, I can present a clearer idea of the wealth our farmers have digged 
out of the earth by some comparisons. In 1881 the products of all the 
gold and silver mines of the United States aggregated only |77, 700,000; 
for 1882 they aggregated $79,300,000; for 1883, |;76,200,000; and for 
1884, $79,600,000 — making a total, for those four years, of |312,800,000. 
The value of the field crops of Kansas, for the same years, aggregated 
$411,092,498; aud the farm products of the State for the same period, 
aggregated in value $595,099,894 — or very nearly double the aggregate 
of all the gold and silver products of all the mines of the country. 

The gold and silver products of the world average about $208,000,000 
per annum. The farm products of Kansas for 1885 aggregated 
$143,577,018, or nearly three- fourths the value of the gold and silver 
product of the world. 

For the past four years the farm products of Kansas have aggregated 
in value each year more than double the annual yield of all the gold and 
silver mines of the United States. 



13 

The gold and silver products of Colorado, for 1 883, aggregated only 
$20,250,000; those of California, $1 6,000,000; of Nevada, $9,100,000; 
of Montana, 19,170,000; of Utah, $6,920,000; of Arizona, $5,430,000; 
and of New Mexico, $3,300,000, The corn crop of Kansas for the same 
year was alone worth more money than the combined gold and silver 
products of Colorado, California and Nevada ; the oat crop of Kansa.s 
was worth $705,000 more than the gold and silver product of Arizona; 
and the Irish potato crop of Kansas was worth more than the gold and 
silver product of New Mexico. 

PKOPERTY VALUATIONS. 

The property valuations of Kansas have increased in steady proportion 
with the growth of the State in population and productions. In 1860 
the true valuation of all the property of the State was estimated at $31,- 
327,891; in 1865 it was estimated at $72,252,180; in 1870 it had 
increased to $188,892,014; in 1875 to $242,555,862; in 1880 to $321,- 
783,387; and for 1885 the true valuation, at a very moderate estimate, 
was $550,000,000. 

The following table presents the assessed valuation of all the property 
of the State for the years mentioned, and also the assessed valuation of 
all the real, personal, and railroad property. It will be seen that the in- 
crease in the total assessed values from 1865 to 1875 was $85,434,344, 
while from 1875 to 1885 it was $127,300,928. 



Year. 


Total. 


Real estate. 


Personal. 


Railroad. 


I860 


$22,518,232 
36,126,090 
92,100,820 
121,476,352 
160,891,689 
248,845,276 


$16,088,602 
28,133,276 
65,499,365 
89,775,784 
108,432,049 
161,791,641 


$6,429,630 
* 7,992,814 
* 26, 601, 455 
19,422,037 
31,911,838 
56,685,818 




1865 




1870 




1875 


$12,277,931 
20 547 802 


1880 


1885 


30,367,817 





In 1865 and 1870, the railroad property was assessed as personal, and is included under that head. 

KANSAS MANUFACTURES. 

Kansas is not a manufacturing State. Its prosperity is based upon 
the plow. It has, however, coal deposits equal to the needs of its popu- 
lation, valuable lead mines in the southeast, and salt and gypsum in 
abundance. But the manufacturing establishments of the State are stead- 
ily increasing in importance as well as in number. In its flouring and 
grist mills Kansas ranked, in 1880, as the thirteenth State of the Union; 
in meat packing, as the twelfth ; and in cheese products, as the fourteenth. 

In the following table the number of manufactnring establishments, 
including mines and railroad shops, their capital, products, etc., is given 
for the years named : 



14 



Year. 



Estqblis?t^ 
ments. 



I860.. 
1870.. 
1880.. 
1885* 



344 
1,470 
2,803 
3,900 



Capital. 



»1, 084, 935 
4,319,060 
11,191,315 
19,000,000 



Employii. 



1,735 
6,844 
10,062 
16,000 



Wages. 



$880,346 
2,377,511 
3,995,010 
6,300,000 



Value of 
products. 



$4,337,408 
11,775,833 
30,843,777 
48,000,000 



■ Partly estimated. 



TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES. 
The transportation facilities of Kansas are unsurpas.sed. Only seven 
States of the Union, Xew York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, 
Iowa and Missouri, have within their borders more miles of completed 
railway than has Kansas. For fully two hundred miles west of our 
eastern border, every county except one is traversed by from one to six- 
lines of railway. There are eighty-six organized and eleven unorganized 
(bounties in the State, and of these all except fourteen organized and seven 
unorganized counties have railways within their limits. In 1864 Kan- 
sas had not a mile of completed railroad. In 1870 we had 1,283 miles; 
in 1875 over 1,887 miles; in 1880 an aggregate of 8,104 miles, and 
there are now 4,750 miles of completed railway in Kansas. 

THE SCHOOLS OF KANSAS. 
Education has gone hand in hand with the material growth of Kansas. 
It has been the boast of our people, for twenty years past, that the best 
building in every city, town or hamlet in the State was the school house. 
The census of 1880 revealed the fact that only 25,503 inhabitants of 
Kansas, over ten years of age, were unable to read. The growth of our 
school system is shown by the following figures : 



Year. 



Scholars 
enrolled. 



1860 ' 5,915 

1863 1 26,341 

1870 63,218 

1875 141,606 

1880 231,434 

1885 335,538 



School 
houses. 


School 
districls. 


Teachers. 


154 
640 
1,501 
3,715 
5,315 
6,673 




189 
899 
2,210 
5,383 
7,780 
8,219 


721 
1,950 
4,560 
6,134 
7,142 



Amount 
paid la 
teachers. 



$86,898 

318,596 

689,906 

1,088,504 

1,989,169 



Value of 
school 
houses. 



$122,822 
1,520,041 
3,742,307 
4,049,212 
6,704,176 



In 1861 the amount expended for the support of common schools was 
only $1,700, while the expenditures for the same purpose, during th€ 
year 1885, aggregated $2,977,763. For the five years ending with 1865, 
the expenditures for public schools aggregated $262,657.21 ; for the next 
succeeding five years they aggregated $2,259,497,89; for the next five, 
$7,552,191.43; for the next five, $7,509,375.23; and for the five years 
ending with 1885 the expenditures for public schools aggregated 
$12,630,480.64. Thus Kansas has expended for the support of her 



15 



common schools, during the past quarter of" a century, the enormous sum 
of $30,214,202.40. 

The table following shows the expenditures each year, from 18()1 to 
to 1885, inclusive, and illustrates not only the growth of Kansas, but 
the general and generous interest of its citizens in public education : 



Fedf. 



1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 



Expenditures. 



SI, 

11. 

26, 

84, 

137, 

225, 

364, 

431, 

565, 

673, 

1,074. 

1,701, 

1,657, 

1,638, 



TOO 00 
894 45 
867 03 
221 30 
974 43 
426 27 
402 50 
316 54 
311 17 
041 41 
946 09 
950 44 
318 27 
977 99 



Expendilurex. 



1876 Jl, 478, 998 64 

1876 1,165,638 80 

1877 1,394,188 11 

1878 1 1,541,417 12 

1879 1 1,589,794 30 

1880 1,818,336 90 

1881 1 1,996,335 64 

1882 2,194,174 65 

1883 1 2,579,243 62 

1884 : 2,882,963 53 

1885 j 2,977,763 23 

Total $80,214,202 40 



CHURCHES AND NEWSPAPERS. 

Churches have multiplied and newspapers increased as have the schools. 
In 1860 there were only 97 church buildings in Kansas, and they had 
cost only $143,950. In 1870 the number of churches had increased to 
301, valued at |1,722,700; and in 1880 they numbered 2,514, costing an 
aggregate of $2,491,560. 

There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of 
these only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, 
of which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 
20 dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were 
dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our 
newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation aggre- 
gated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers, 
and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to the 

State. 

WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 

And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quar- 
ter of a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer, with 
confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that 
the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any 
we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been 
broken by the plow — ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply 
the present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of 
the Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining 
upon our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual, 
permanent settlements in the counties along our Western frontier — not 



16 

settlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by- 
practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organ- 
ized counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river 
to the Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic 
changes, and questioning whether tlie western third of Kansas is fit for 
general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton coun- 
ties entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge 
or barometer, but he sees the buiFalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint 
sending its long roots deep into the soil ; he sees the trees growing on the 
high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and wav- 
ing its green guidons of prosperity in the wind ; he sees the clouds gather- 
ing and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof — and he 
knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to stay. 

A PKOPHECY FULFILLED. 

On the 7th of May, 1856, a great American, learned, sagacious, and 
confident in his faith that right and justice would at last prevail, said, 
in a speech delivered in the City of New York : 

" In the year of our Lord 1900, there will be two million people in Kan- 
sas, with cities like Providence and Worcester — perhaps like Chicago 
and Cincinnati. She will have more miles of railroad than Maryland, 
Virginia, and both the Carolinas can now boast. Her land will be worth 
twenty dollars an acre, and her total wealth will be five hundred millions 
of money. Six hundred thousand children will learn in her schools. 
What schools, newspapers, libraries, meeting-houses ! Yes, what fami- 
lies of educated, happy and religious men and women ! There will be a 
song of Freedom all around the Slave States, and in them Slavery itself 
will die." 

Read in the light of the present, these eloquent words of Theodore 
Parker seem touched with prophetic fire. The ideal Kansas he saw, 
looking through the mists of the future, is the real Kansas of to-day. 
The marvelous growth, the splendid prosperity, the potent intellectual 
and moral energies, and the happy and contented life he predicted, are 
all around us. At the threshold of the year A. D. 1886, fifteen years 
before the limit of his prophecy, Kansas has cities like Providence and 
Worcester; has more than double the railway mileage Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and both the Carolinas could then boast; has land worth, not twenty, 
but fifty and a hundred dollars an acre; has wealth far exceeding five 
hundred million dollars; has schools, newspapers, libraries and churches 
rivaling those of New England; and has 1,300,000 happy, prosperous 
and intelligent people. 

The prophecy has been fulfilled, but the end is not yet. The founda- 
tions of the State, like those of its Capitol, have just been completed. 



1 
I 



17 

The stately building, crowned with its splendid dome, is yet to be reared. 
Smiling and opulent fields, busy and prosperous cities and towns, are still 
attracting the intelligent, the enterprising and the ambitious of every 
State and country. The limits that bound the progress and development 
of Kansas cannot now be gauged or guessed. We have land, homes, 
work and plenty for millions more; and for another quarter of a cen- 
tury, at least, our State will continue to grow. For we are yet at the 
threshold and in the dawn of it all. We are just beginning to realize 
what a great people can accomplish, whom "love of country moveth, ex- 
ample teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, and glory 
exalteth." 



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